Ceramic bodies for use in armored plates for providing ballistic protection for personnel as well as for light and heavy mobile equipment and for vehicles against high-velocity, armor-piercing projectiles or fragments are known in the art.
There are four main considerations concerning protective armor panels. The first consideration is weight. Protective armor for heavy but mobile military equipment, such as tanks and large ships, is known. Such armor usually comprises a thick layer of alloy steel, which is intended to provide protection against heavy and explosive projectiles. However, reduction of weight of armor, even in heavy equipment, is an advantage since it reduces the strain on all the components of the vehicle. Furthermore, such armor is quite unsuitable for light vehicles such as automobiles, jeeps, light boats, or aircraft, whose performance is compromised by steel panels having a thickness of more than a few millimeters, since each millimeter of steel adds a weight factor of 7.8 kg/m2.
Armor for light vehicles is expected to prevent penetration of bullets of any type, even when impacting at a speed in the range of 700 to 1000 meters per second. However, due to weight constraints it is difficult to protect light vehicles from high caliber armor-piercing projectiles, e.g. of 12.7 and 14.5 mm, since the weight of standard minor to withstand such projectile is such as to impede the mobility and performance of such vehicles.
A second consideration is cost. Overly complex armor arrangements, particularly those depending entirely on synthetic fibers, can be responsible for a notable proportion of the total vehicle cost, and can make its manufacture non-profitable.
A third consideration in armor design is compactness. A thick armor panel, including air spaces between its various layers, increases the target profile of the vehicle. In the case of civilian retrofitted armored automobiles which are outfitted with internal armor, there is simply no room for a thick panel in most of the areas requiring protection.
A fourth consideration relates to ceramic plates used for personal and light vehicle armor, which plates have been found to be vulnerable to damage from mechanical impacts caused by rocks, falls, etc.
In addition, of the known armor panels, most suffer the limitation that such panels do not have multi-hit capability.
Thus a light-weight, minor panel, without the above-limitations is as yet lacking.